Cancer represents a significant burden on human health, accounting for an estimated 13% of all deaths each year. Several common cancers and diseases are associated with androgen signaling, such as, for example pancreatic cancer.
Pancreatic cancer is particularly aggressive and has a 3-5% survival rate. Histologically, 90% of human pancreatic cancer is presented as pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). The aggressive nature of the disease and its high metastatic potential makes the development of efficacious therapeutic strategies very significant. Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States. In spite of recent therapeutic advances, long term survival in PDAC is often limited to patients who have had surgery in early stage of the disease. The biological aggressiveness of PDAC is due, in part, to the tumor's resistance to chemotherapy and to its propensity to metastasize even when the primary tumor is small.